Everything I Know About Love

I know that if I’d been able to read Everything I Know About Love when I was much younger, I would have been able to accept and love myself a lot sooner. That’s why I’m so desperate to tell you about it.

Dolly Alderton – award-winning journalist, writer, podcast host and (now) bestselling author – has created the most captivating book I’ve read in a long time.

Published earlier this year, Everything I know About Love feels like sipping a freshly brewed cup of coffee with your best mate – Dolly says it like it is as you laugh (and cry) your way down memory lane, from the first time her best friend got a boyfriend to the moment she embarked on the journey of self-discovery that is living independently and creating her own home. From clinical Tinder dates to ridiculously romcom-like airport proposals, Dolly takes us through the trials and tribulations of 21st century dating. The vulnerability of Dolly’s writing allows you to connect with her experiences, as well as the lessons learned from each one.

In interrogating on the abundance of love-related definitions available to us, Dolly lets us in to her world by reflecting on how some of the highs and lows* of her personal life have taught her more about what love is than any dictionary or Google search.

* See what I did there? Dolly’s podcast, The High Low, is one of my absolute favourites! I wrote about it here and you can listen to it here.

Everything I know About Love follows Dolly’s relationship with the term ‘love’ from childhood to today, exploring the complexity of its ever-changing meaning and subjectivity alongside its effects on Dolly and those around her. Her hilariously honest and wonderfully witty writing invites you to reconsider how exactly you interpret the word ‘love’, and how this perception changes as you do.

This book has taught me that not only am I more than enough, but also that no friend, boyfriend, relative or otherwise can change that. I deserve to surround myself with people who teach me what love means not by theoretical definition, but by feeling. Please do the same.